Option Meaning
leave_umask Set to 1 to disable setting umask to 0
for socket open
nointr Do not allow the listener to be
interrupted by Ctrl+C
nproc Specify a number of processes for
FCGI::ProcManager
pidfile Specify a filename for the pid file
manager Specify a FCGI::ProcManager sub-class
detach Detach from console

$self->write($c, $buffer)

$self->daemon_fork()

Performs the first part of daemon initialisation. Specifically, forking. STDERR, etc are still connected to a terminal.

$self->daemon_detach( )

Performs the second part of daemon initialisation. Specifically, disassociates from the terminal.

However, this does not change the current working directory to "/", as normal daemons do. It also does not close all open file descriptors (except STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR, which are re-opened from /dev/null).

WEB SERVER CONFIGURATIONS

Standalone FastCGI Server

In server mode the application runs as a standalone server and accepts connections from a web server. The application can be on the same machine as the web server, on a remote machine, or even on multiple remote machines. Advantages of this method include running the Catalyst application as a different user than the web server, and the ability to set up a scalable server farm.

To start your application in server mode, install the FCGI::ProcManager module and then use the included fastcgi.pl script.

$ script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -l /tmp/myapp.socket -n 5

Command line options for fastcgi.pl include:

-d -daemon Daemonize the server.
-p -pidfile Write a pidfile with the pid of the process manager.
-l -listen Listen on a socket path, hostname:port, or :port.
-n -nproc The number of processes started to handle requests.

See below for the specific web server configurations for using the external server.

Apache 1.x, 2.x

Apache requires the mod_fastcgi module. The same module supports both Apache 1 and 2.

There are three ways to run your application under FastCGI on Apache: server, static, and dynamic.

The FastCgiExternalServer directive tells Apache that when serving /tmp/myapp to use the FastCGI application listenting on the socket /tmp/mapp.socket. Note that /tmp/myapp does not need to exist -- it's a virtual file name.

It's likely that Apache is not configured to serve files in /tmp, so the Alias directive maps the url path /myapp/ to the (virtual) file that runs the FastCGI application. The trailing slashes are important as their use will correctly set the PATH_INFO environment variable used by Catalyst to determine the request path. If you would like to be able to access your app without a trailing slash (http://server/myapp), you can use the above RewriteRule directive.

Static mode

The term 'static' is misleading, but in static mode Apache uses its own FastCGI Process Manager to start the application processes. This happens at Apache startup time. In this case you do not run your application's fastcgi.pl script -- that is done by Apache. Apache then maps URIs to the FastCGI script to run your application.

FastCgiServer tells Apache to start three processes of your application at startup. The Alias command maps a path to the FastCGI application. Again, the trailing slashes are important.

Dynamic mode

In FastCGI dynamic mode, Apache will run your application on demand, typically by requesting a file with a specific extension (e.g. .fcgi). ISPs often use this type of setup to provide FastCGI support to many customers.

In this mode it is often enough to place or link your *_fastcgi.pl script in your cgi-bin directory with the extension of .fcgi. In dynamic mode Apache must be able to run your application as a CGI script so ExecCGI must be enabled for the directory.

AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi

The above tells Apache to run any .fcgi file as a FastCGI application.